A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

---Introduction--- I love reading autobiographies, and I particularly enjoy reading about other peoples' experiences with mental health problems, and drug and alcohol addictions. Perhaps I find that reading about other peoples' misery makes me feel better about my own life. Perhaps I also like the sense of optimism at the end of these books where the author ultimately gets their life back on track and manages to write a book about their past experiences. Perhaps in a way I'm doing research for when I write about my own experiences! Most of the stuff on my Amazon recommended book list ends up there in error - trying to encourage me to buy ...  Read the complete review

I first became aware of “A Million Little Pieces” when a friend started reading it. I didn’t know what it was about at the time, but the frequency with which her face was screwed up in distaste at something she’d read was intriguing. All she told me was that it was the story of a man in rehab which, having recently read and enjoyed “Dangerous Parking”, the story of a man’s battle with cancer, I didn’t think I’d find as distasteful as she had. James is 23 and he’s an addict. He’s not addicted to any one thing in particular, merely whatever he can get his hands on. He can claim to be an alcoholic, glue sniffer and having taken drugs from marijuana to crack ...  Read the complete review

Storyline - James frey was 23 when he was admitted to a rehabiliation centre to deal with his addictions to alchohol and drugs mainly crack cocaine. This is his story (or some of it is) of life in a treatment facility and how doing things your own way sometimes works out for the best. James was never one for rules so when he is admitted to the rehab centre he can think of nothing worse than having to attend lectures from people who's opinion he despises, follow the twelve steps of alchoholics annonymous of which he has no belief at all and of having to spend time in therapy talking about his problems. But as the book goes on you see just how much ...  Read the complete review

I can't say that I would have chosen this book myself. Sure the cover is attractive enough, but I usually like to steer clear of the trauma section at Waterstones, instead heading for works of complete fantasy, that I can read without being reminded that a less perfect world exists, and that I live in it. However this book, which does completely the opposite, was recommended to me by a friend so I decided to read it. A million little pieces tells the story of James Frey, the books author, and his time spent in a rehabilitation facility. Here he was treated for a drug and alcohol addiction along with countless other men and women in the same predicament. But ...  Read the complete review

It seems likely James Frey will forever be remembered for the contrived literary scandal of 2006. His former champion, Oprah Winfrey, raked him over the coals on national television after it was exposed by an internet gossip site that he had fictionalised portions of his best selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, hitherto acclaimed as a heartbreaking and inspirational account of one man's battle to overcome drug and alcohol addiction, and afterwards denounced as a shambolic hoax perpetrated by a cynical fraud. It little seemed to matter that discerning readers had recognised from day one the signs that Frey, a slightly egotistical self publicist during ...  Read the complete review